frithfarm1

Monday, June 24, 2013

Virtual Farm Tour

This past week I met a lot of you CSA'ers walking around the farm, a bit disoriented.

Which I completely understand. There are a lot of things growing that don't necessarily look like what you'd expect them to yet, plus we're constantly moving the animals around to new edges of the farm.

Today I'd like to take you on a virtual farm tour; just in case you ever decide to take a stroll around the farm, you'll have a general idea of what is where. Above you see our driveway, usually packed with cars on Tuesdays and Fridays between noon and 8pm. The three apprentices live in the part of the house where the porch entrance is and Daniel lives in his own section directly below the chimney.

The Frith Farm sign is surrounded by our perennial pick-your-own herb garden. Once we get around to taming (weeding) this beast, you'll be able to find herbs like chamomile, lemon balm, oregano and sage here.

This is your view from the barn where you pick up your shares (normally not featuring Daniel digging a trench). Behind Daniel and his shovel is our pick-your-own annual herb garden. Here you'll find loads of basil, cilantro and several dill forests. The plot in the left foreground is our pick your own flower plot, which is just about ready to be plucked!

Behind the flowers you'll see two greenhouse-looking things, neither of which are actually greenhouses. The one closest to the barn is called the henhouse and it's where we raise our baby chicks who later are put on pasture and then processed here on the farm. (Our first chicken processing is this Thursday and fresh chickens will be available Friday the 28th!)

Behind the henhouse is the high tunnel where we have planted our heirloom tomatoes. We planted them inside to attempt to save them from a pest that only comes out at night.

If you decided to venture beyond the chicks and the high tunnel tomatoes, you would see our eggplant and pepper plot on your left, followed by our kales, collards, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. On your right you would see several succession plantings of lettuce, mustard greens, bok choi, turnips, kohlrabi, and rutabaga. The green bushy plot following all that is potatoes and in the far back right you'll see five beds of brussels sprouts, my personal favorites!

After you've exhausted one side of Frith Farm, you can always head past our chicken processing trailer on the right and through the wall of blue spruce trees to the other half of the farm.

From this vantage point you see our huge bed of garlic on the left, four beds of beets on the right with carrots finishing out that plot. Past the beets on your right there is an entire plot of onions and way in the far back is our spinach, swiss chard, sugar snap pea plot. You can make out the bright red Eggmobile next to the peas as well. We move this weekly though, so chances are it's already changed positions.

Finally we have our actual greenhouse; this being the place where we start our seedlings and keep them warm in the chilly Maine spring (and summer!). Behind this we have our cucumbers, summer squash, lettuce heads and more onions.

We also happen to have these little guys back at the edge of the woods. Although they are particularly skittish when they're young, if you walk up to them slowly and quietly, you're sure to catch a glimpse. Just look for the white electrified fence next to the big blue barrels of pig feed.

As an additional reward for reading all the way to the end of this pretty word-y post, I'd like to ask for name suggestions for the grey kitten above that we've decided to keep. At the moment his name is Tim, for lack of any better alternative. Make your suggestions fast in the comments below or in person this week, before he's doomed to be Tim forever!